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Money In Rapture
Sitemap Money In Rapture * See Also Rapture_Economy * See Also Surface_CASH . . . . . --- --- --- --- --- Banks - Important Component of Economy of Old Rapture : How Banks might have worked - Ryan would have NO (?) official restrictive laws for regulation, but there could be standard contracts for conditions of how money was to be handled/secured (You HAVE TO HAVE some Contract Law enforcement if you want any of the large 'Big City' institutionalized commercial/business we are shown existed in Rapture). Loaning Money by Bank from Accounts for CASH which pays interest : * Example would be that all loans made by a 'Safe' Bank would (by contract agreement) require strong security of most of the value of the loan. Secured Mortgages... * Another more speculative 'Bank' would have more liberal security requirements for the loans (at a higher interest rate), or even the Bank itself would invest in partnerships in businesses (a simplified type of 'stock' market). An understanding would exist that your money may not be there if things go bad. * Safe Deposit Boxes - offered an alternative of a place to securely store money/other valuables/papers. - Raptures Original Money Supply : * Quite a number of rich people came to Rapture to escape the "Atomic Doomsday", and others the growing socialism. Thus large amounts of money were available. * Many immigrant's Surface financial assets were sold off slowly to maximize the exchange/recovery and to avoid liquidations being a 'fire sale', and to avoid attention. * Immigrant's assets from the Surface were converted to Rapture Dollars (R$). The outside monies were then used by Ryan to build the City. The monies would be good for purchasing services from "The City". * Other investors externally paid for space and expenses of construction of their own (it wasn't just Ryan's fortune that got Rapture built - there were separate construction organizations) which they subsequently had ownership of (but did not receive Rapture Dollars for). * Wealth used for external construction costs (with the return of ownership rights) did not increase money supply. * R$ Money originally going to internal construction costs (labor, locally produced materials) would recycle the CASH back into the system (again not increasing money supply). - Money itself (Rapture Dollars - R$) - who issues it and how much : * Money would have to be standardized (with no banks issuing their own) to facilitate normal monetary interactions. * Minted in Rapture to a Quality that would be hard to counterfeit (and counterfeiting WOULD be a crime -- seems there are lots of "Laws" despite the simplistic "Stick it to Ryan" theme the game designers tried to foist on us). * The money supply would initially be set as an equivalent to surface values (probably the American Dollar so soon after WW2) and money minted to make the exchange. Other factors would then determine how much more money would be created to facilitate normal economics in the City. - Precious metals for Rapture's money ? : * Pro - Money supply was to be limited and linking it to limited supply of gold/silver accomplished that. * ??? - Surface World precious metal values would not allow one-for-one wealth conversion to R$ without outside purchase of the equivalent real-world amount of specie. * Con - Specie purchased from the Surface subtracts from monies available to build the City. * Pro - Money in circulation only has to be a fraction of the Economy to function as a medium of exchange. * Pro - Intrinsic value only goes so far (you cannot eat silver/gold) so hoarding would be self-limiting * Con - Silver/Gold/other?? coins are not conducive to large scale business transactions (except as bank transfers). * Pro - Paper money used to facilitate large transfers but should be strictly limited as 'placeholder' for Specie held in 'Reserves' (who maintains that ?) Conversion to specie "On Demand". "New Rapture" Banks could only offer simpler economic services, as the reconstituted City lacked scale for needing anything more complex. This would mainly be : * the Safety Deposit Box service (Heh, yet another 'City' Mission for Players is to be a City Bank guard for a period of time) * Secure Bank Accounts to facilitate transfers of larger money amounts between larger businesses and day to day payments by ordinary citizens - The New City would organize this without any investment/interest component allowed. * Savings and Loan (by contract with NO possibility that money would be used for speculation like modern (broken) banking laws allow). What form would the new (New Rapture) Ryan Dollars take ? : * There is too much 'Old' Money floating around for it to retain any conversion value (especially any old paper money). * Again, once the New City became organized and needed something beyond barter and the 'Food for Labor' tokens initially utilized, a unit of exchange was created to facilitate growth of a real City, which needed business economics and thus standardization in commercial exchanges. * Newly minted 'New' money was created (again in some form hard to counterfeit). * A standard value of buying basic food, and paying rent/fees was established to create a trust in the new money. Note - Old Money as specie ( gold/silver and not paper "shin plasters" ), then it could have some actual intrinsic value (though you cant eat silver/gold, but that never hindered its desirability before). It would have definite use to pay for Later-Day purchases from The Surface (via smugglers/any official trade). BTW - It is thought that Surface materials/goods were 'purchased' (when not outright stolen) by Sophia Lamb using gold/silver (money) found in Rapture (and dutifully turned in by her 'The Family'). - ' ??? Am I really obsessive going into details like this ?' Its a Hobby, and actually an interesting reflection upon how our own world is organized - Rapture would be a microcosm of our Modern World. (( One hopes others are at least entertained by all this stuff I've written. For me it made me examine and consider many of the systems we all take for granted in the Real World.)) *** You can be sure that someone will declare the MMORPG eventually as 'educational' if run in any logical real-world systematic way. --- --- --- Raptures Chaos Era/Area Currencies : ADAM used as Currency in parts of the MMORPG's Rapture ? Unfortunately it is a currency where its substance is frequently consumed, and thus can lead to wildly fluctuating 'value', which makes it more a type of barter commodity. Sander Cohen brand Prest-O-Logs (For that woodsy atmosphere in your very own fireplace !!!) used as Currency would have the same problem (dried fish used as currency probably would be worse). What else would be accepted as a "Medium of Exchange", which would have intrinsic value, but available in far short of a highly organized/sizable Society -- which can have 'value tokens' (promissory notes) which don't have intrinsic value (but are 'convertable on demand' ?) * Breath Mints (Dr Zhoidburg's Fresh Mints (Non-EVE containing ones) had a very good shelf life and harded into a 'sortof' resin). * Audio Diaries (except we found those lying abandoned everywhere, apparently unwanted .. too many) * ADAM/EVE Syringes? (ditto, but maybe the BS1/BS2 settings were not 'chaotic' enough to have them easily found full) * Strangely shaped glass Nostrum bottles (a bit fragile to carry around) * Preserved Cat Corpses (so THAT'S why we saw so many lying about ....) 'Making change' might be 'disturbing' ... What thing which cannot usually be used up (like bullets or cigarettes can be) might be such a unit of exchange ?? Payment for consumption requires a non-trivial stable regenerative source for the item of exchange. The MMORPG's New Rapture would have to come up with something to be used as 'money', to allow more flexibility in expanding commerce, than barter. Hephaestus Power/Air/Basic Rent/Labor tokens might be workable. --- --- --- AMMOphilia (the strange possession of ammunition objects seemingly designed for the Player to obtain) : So many Splicers carrying 'Rivets' ??? Yet did you ever see ONE firing the rivet gun weapon ?? (or any normal rivetting tools lying about?). So why ? Maybe people paid-off Big Daddies with them ?? Bribes to the ones (BDs) jobbed with cleaning up Little Sister vomit ??? All those Ion Cells, every other Splicer in Minervas Den carried ? "Drill" Fuel... etc. Some warped form of 'Money Currency for 'all of the above' ??? --- --- --- "The Rapture Family" Coins : Would have been a good detail to have those coin-operated/metered gas valves you see on British TV to power gas appliances (water heaters/room heat/etc..) except by BS2 they would be all busted off the appliances (unless because of shortages, they had to be retained and usage doled out using 'Family Coins' or somesuch). Would 'The Lamb' be on these coins, or Sofia's face ? A Three Dollar bill ? Or the old coupons for Lambs therapy sessions became the currency ? With the big share-fest commune Lamb was organizing, then why do all the Splicers keep money in their pockets ? --- --- --- --- --- . .